Anti-doping warden not going to quietly Fahey away

John Fahey is angry there has been no action by WorkSafe Victoria against AFL club Essendon after the drug supplement scandal. Photo: Nic Walker

Anne Hyland

ARIA

1 Macquarie St, Sydney

2 mineral waters, $24

2 courses, $148

1 mash, $15

2 glasses of wine, $30

long black, $9.50

cappuccino, $9.50

Total $236.00

If you had to choose between giving a young Tony Abbott or a young Barry O’Farrell a job, who would you pick? It’s one of the tough decisions John Fahey had to make in a diverse career, which has spanned state and federal politics, and a six-year term as president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

“They sent me two candidates for state director of the NSW Liberal Party when I was premier, Tony Abbott and Barry ­O’Farrell. They said: ‘We can’t choose between them. Would you like to give us a steer?’ I interviewed them both and the ­obvious question was: have you got any political ambition? I believed Barry more than I believed Tony, so he got the job.”

Fahey laughs when he says this doesn’t reflect too well on him now that he picked a future NSW premier over a future prime minister as having more ambition.

We’re sitting in the comfort of Matt Moran’s Aria Restaurant, which has postcard views overlooking the Sydney Opera House. Moran is hunkered over a table ­chatting to guests. It’s a superb summer day and lunching with a former Howard government finance minister and NSW premier has its dining advantages. We’ve scored one of the best tables at Aria.

Bruised but not out

“Is there a better spot in the world? I don’t think so,” says Fahey, 68, who looks like he’s gone several rounds with Chopper Read.

His left ear has a bloodied cut where an incision was made to remove a benign lump one week ago. It required a three-day stay in hospital. It’s surprising he’s back at work.

“I had too much to do,” he says.

The area around his ear is numb and one of his eyes is weeping, though the latter is barely noticeable, with Fahey more self-conscious about it than he ought to be.

Diagnosed with lung cancer in 2001 and given a one-in-four chance of survival, Fahey no longer leaves his health to chance.

The waiter, who has been hovering, butts in: “How did you go with the menus there, folks?”

I order the salad of pickled and baked beetroot with goat’s curd, radish and green apple and, for the main, a crispy-skinned barramundi fillet with steamed mussels, cos lettuce and samphire.

Fahey orders the roasted scallops with calamari, razor clams and warm vinaigrette of celery, dulse and hazelnut oil. And then the king trout fillet with cauliflower, almonds and spanner crab, with pickled radish and smoked trout tea.

We opt for a side of mash and two glasses of sauvignon blanc. An amuse-bouche of raw kingfish with wakame, apple and cucumber, arrives almost immediately.

Bittersweet exit from anti-doping authority

Fahey has filled out since his political days and has the doughy physique of a former rugby league player past his prime.

In his youth, Fahey played and coached rugby league for Canterbury Bankstown, Camden and Oakdale.

Fahey steps down as WADA president at the end of the month. His powerful legacy will be a new rule that allows the authority to go after coaches, trainers, agents, parents and other support personnel involved in an athlete’s doping.

Of the role, he says: “It’s been very absorbing and worth doing and very satisfying.”

But his term is tinged with disappointment because of the drug supplement ­scandals that have swept Australian ­football codes.

“I’ve always prided myself that Australians played tough but fair. And then it was ‘hang on, now we’re cheating’.”

AFL club Essendon has reeled from a drug supplement scandal that has claimed the scalps of club officials including chairman David Evans, while its coach, James Hird, has been suspended. The club continues to be investigated by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority.

“I expect there will be several charges by ASADA. It’s only a matter of when.”

Fahey, who has aged considerably in recent years (the WADA role has been demanding with 60 overseas trips in six years), has lost none of his fight, and it may be the Irish blood in him. Both his parents were born in the Emerald Isle.

WorkSafe’s ‘disgraceful’ inaction

Fahey is angry there has been no action by WorkSafe Victoria against Essendon, chaired by Paul Little, who ran logistics group Toll Holdings for 26 years.

“Where is WorkSafe Victoria in all of this? How can James Hird be at the helm of the club as the head coach when 4000-plus injections have been given to playing staff, none of which anybody can tell us what it was, most of which we know is not approved for human consumption, and put at risk these kids, and not have WorkSafe Victoria banging on their door that this is an unsafe workplace? Nothing’s been done there – that’s the sacred cow AFL is. It’s disgraceful that WorkSafe haven’t been in there tipping it on its head.”

He also says it’s disgraceful the “way the club has locked arms around itself and said we’ll fix this”.

But, somewhat wearily, Fahey admits it’s not surprising.

“No sports minister or sports official I’ve met anywhere in the world wants to have their athletes in the headlines for the wrong reasons. The first thing they say to you is ‘how can we fix this?’ They’ll give you all the support you want and tell you why it’s so important to fight drugs in sport as long as it’s not their sport. When their sport gets caught with it, they want to make it go away. If they can cover it up, they will.”

He recalls talking to the Luxembourg sports minister, after one of that country’s cyclists, Frank Schleck, failed a doping test and pulled out of the 2012 Tour de France.

Fahey says it was all about the shame and what it was doing to him.

“I told him use it as a badge of honour. Tell the world how tough you are on cheats. Surely, I said, your citizens will applaud you for taking a strong stand. He had his head in his hands the whole time and that’s typical of what you get.”

Fahey expects charges are coming against some NRL clubs by ASADA, with Cronulla’s 2011 supplement program the issue most under the microscope.

Keeping up with keeping young

The entrees arrive and Fahey, who grew up on a dairy farm, takes a sip of wine, which gives me the opportunity to ask whether he’s looking to wind down his workload.

“There are a couple of things happening; if they come to pass, I will be a busy boy for the next few years.”

Those opportunities are in the private ­sector and he won’t say what they are. He has served there in different roles, working on companies that mining giant Xstrata has bought and as an adviser to JPMorgan, which he continues to do.

Fahey and his wife, Colleen, are also busy raising Amber and Campbell, 14 and 12; the children of their daughter, Tiffany, who died in a car crash in 2006.

Fahey has two other children.

“It’s the 40th year this year that my wife is still going to the school gate. Keeping up with the modern curriculum is a challenge but trying to understand modern music and pop stars . . . God help me.”

On a more sombre note, Fahey, who remains a practising Catholic, says he still has a “little bit of faith left”, noting that he survived cancer, which means he could still be “around to bring [Tiffany’s kids] through”.

Government’s A-team more a B-team

We move onto politics. Fahey served as industrial relations minister in the NSW Greiner government and when Nick Greiner resigned as premier, he succeeded him.

He later went into federal politics, serving for two terms as finance minister under John Howard. Fahey, a lawyer, was running his own firm when he was drawn into ­politics because of his outrage at the policies of the Whitlam government. A dyed-in-the wool Liberal, Fahey is not beyond criticising his own side, although he rarely does so.

Our mains arrive as he expresses some frustration with the Abbott government. Treasurer Joe Hockey also worked for Fahey as director of policy to the NSW premier.

“I’m not that comfortable with what they [the Abbott government] have done so far,” he says. There’s been a few trips that were unnecessary.”

He lists the Gonski education backflip, the imbroglio with Indonesia on spying and the briefings on refugee boat arrivals.

“Given the number of people who were ministers in the last Howard government, you would have thought they would have a better understanding of processes and systems. Most times when you go to government, you’ve got your best team [with you]. I don’t think we took our best team into ­government under Abbott.

“There are a lot of people there who are tired or who had been going around for too long and hadn’t been successful. Consequently, some of the brighter people who could have been developed in the last few years were not given the opportunities to develop. Tony is very much a stickler of standing behind those who’ve been loyal to him. It doesn’t get you the best outcomes.”

Tony ‘no friends’ Abbott

Fahey expects Abbott may have to make some gutsy calls and remove ministers who underperform.

“Tony has picked a team that got him over the line as opposition leader. A number of them were never going to make him look good in government.”

Fahey says Abbott was not “known for his judgment” in the Howard government.

“Tony had no friends there in my time. Not too many people respected him. He’s been a very effective opposition leader. He may have grown.”

Fahey disagrees with the lack of information on refugee boat arrivals.

“There could be more information provided on that. The stupidity of that is that [Immigration Minister] Scott Morrison goes in every Friday saying ‘I’m not going to talk to you about operational matters’ and then the Attorney-General, or whoever the hell is running the program, goes into the Senate and tells them everything.”

He says the public wants politicians to lead and deliver good policy.

Fahey was happy to take a call from Mathias Cormann when he became federal Finance Minister this year.

Our coffees arrive, and we talk about ­Ireland, castles, my own Irish heritage and the Irish claddagh wedding band that Fahey wears. It’s almost 200 years old, passed down through his mother’s family.

Fahey has the Irish gift of the gab. Lunch, as we wind up, has lasted almost three hours.